A Military Accident or Just
simply Negligence?
I am not here to blame either
sides or even a country for that matter.
I am here to see to it that this event won’t happen in the near future
or even totally avoid such peculiarity.
It has been one of the most unlikely events that would happen in
transportation industry. Civilian plane
being shot down by military! A grain in
haste tack perhaps, but it has been happening for the past number of years. In fact based on my research there have been
approximately 23 incidents or even more reported in history. These events usually happens during or after a world war era or a territorial war between two or more
country.
In our time Russia has always
been involved in such horrific event either directly or indirectly. But don’t get me wrong United States on its
part has also been involved in such event.
In fact they have done it several times.
It was believed that one of the hijack September 21 plane was shot down
during the said event to avoid collision in White house. There are a lot of reason for such event to happen, but all in all, “It must be avoided or in fact, It should not Happen
at all”
Other events:
Kaleva OH-ALL
Junkers Ju 52-3/mge "Kaleva"
OH-ALL was a civilian transport and passenger plane operated by the Finnish carrier Aero O/Y, shot down by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers on June 14, 1940, while en
route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Helsinki, Finland.[1] This occurred during the Interim Peace between Finland and the Soviet
Union, three months after the end of the Winter War, and a year before the Continuation War began. A few minutes after
taking off in Tallinn, Kaleva was intercepted by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3T torpedo bombers. The bombers
opened fire with their machine guns and badly damaged Kaleva, causing it to
ditch in water a few kilometers northeast of Keri lighthouse. All 9 passengers
and crew members on board were killed.[2]
KNILM PK-AFV
PK-AFV, also known
as Pelikaan, was a Douglas DC-3 (Dakota)
airliner operated by KNILM from 1937 to 1942. On March 3, 1942, while
on a flight from Bandung, Netherlands East Indies, to Broome, Australia, the plane was attacked by three Japanese
Mitsubishi A6M fighter planes; PK-AFV
crash-landed on a beach near Broome. Four passengers were killed. Among its
cargo were diamonds worth at the time an estimated £150,000–300,000 (in 2013 an
approximate £6–13 million), and the vast majority of these were lost or stolen
following the crash.[3][4]
BOAC Flight 777
BOAC Flight 777, a
scheduled British
Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight on 1 June 1943 from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal, to Bristol
(Whitchurch) Airport near Bristol, England, was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88s and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing several notable
passengers, including English actor Leslie Howard.[5]
1950s
Cathay Pacific VR-HEU
VR-HEU, a
four-engined propeller-driven Douglas DC-4 airliner operated by Cathay Pacific Airways,[6] en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong on July 23, 1954, was shot down by People's Liberation
Army Air Force Lavochkin La-7
fighters off the coast of Hainan Island,
killing ten on board.[7][8][9]
El Al Flight 402
El Al Flight 402, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation
pressurized four-engine propliner, registered
4X-AKC, was an international passenger flight from Vienna, Austria, to Tel Aviv, Israel, via Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27, 1955. The aircraft strayed into Bulgarian airspace, refused to land, and was shot
down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet
fighters several kilometers away from the Greece border near Petrich, Bulgaria. All seven crew and fifty-one
passengers on board the airliner were killed.[10][11]
1970s
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114
Libyan Airlines Flight 114 was a regularly scheduled flight from Tripoli, Libya,
via Benghazi to Cairo.
At 10:30 on February 21, 1973, the Boeing 727 left Tripoli, but became lost
with a combination of bad weather and equipment failure over northern Egypt
around 13:44 (local). It entered Israeli-controlled airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, was intercepted by two Israeli
F-4 Phantom II fighters, refused to land, and was shot down. Of the 113 people
on board, 5 survived, including the co-pilot.[12][13]
Korean Air Lines Flight 902
Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was a civilian airliner shot down
by Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 fighters
on April 20, 1978, near Murmansk, Russia, after it
violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors. Two
passengers were killed in the incident. 107 passengers and crew survived after
the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.[14]
Air Rhodesia Flight RH825
Air Rhodesia Flight RH825, was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), that was shot down
on September 3, 1978, by Zimbabwe
People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile. Eighteen of the fifty-six
passengers survived the crash, but ten of the survivors were murdered by the
guerrillas at the crash site.
Air Rhodesia Flight RH827
Air Rhodesia Flight RH827 was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down
on February 12, 1979, by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile in similar
circumstances to Flight RH825 five months earlier. None of the fifty-nine
passengers or crew survived.[15]
1980s
Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870
Aerolinee Itavia
Flight 870 crashed in
the Tyrrhenian Sea on June 27, 1980. Around forty
minutes after take off from Bologna, Italy, an unknown object was seen approaching
the aircraft and soon after, the plane disappeared from radar screens. All
eighty-one people on board were killed and parts of the wreckage were floating
on the water. The cause of the crash is unknown, but one of the leading
theories is that it was shot down by NATO forces or jet fighters. This is
supported by the then Italian Prime Minister
Francesco Cossiga,
who attributed the downing to French interceptors, later covered as a part of
the Gladio clandestine operation
by NATO.[16] On 23 January 2013 Italy’s top
criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that
the flight was brought down by a missile.[17]
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747
civilian airliner shot down by a Soviet Su-15TM fighter on September 1, 1983,
near Moneron Island just
west of Sakhalin island.
269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Larry McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were
no survivors. An official
investigation concluded that the course deviation was likely caused
by pilot error in configuring their air navigation system.[18]
Polar 3
On February 24, 1985, the Polar 3, a research airplane of the Alfred Wegener Institute, was shot down by
guerrillas of the Polisario Front
over West Sahara. All three crew members died. Polar
3 was on its way back from Antarctica and had taken
off in Dakar, Senegal, to reach Arrecife, Canary Islands.[19]
Air Malawi 7Q-YMB
On November 6, 1987, an Air Malawi Shorts Skyvan 7Q-YMB was shot down while on a
domestic flight from Blantyre, Malawi
to Lilongwe. The flight plan took it over Mozambique where the Mozambican Civil War
was in progress. The aircraft was shot down near the Mozambican town of
Ulongwe. The eight passengers and two crew on board were killed.[20]
Iran Air Flight 655
Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was a commercial flight operated by
Iran Air that flew from Bandar Abbas, Iran
to Dubai, UAE. On July 3, 1988, towards the
end of the Iran-Iraq War, the
aircraft flying IR655 was shot down by the U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes
when it fired a SM-2MR surface-to-air missile.
The airplane was destroyed between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290
passengers and crew. It was later claimed by United States Government that USS Vincennes
was in Iranian waters at the time of the attack, and IR655, an Airbus A300, was
misidentified as an Iranian F-14.[21]
T&G Aviation DC-7
On December 8, 1988 a Douglas DC-7 chartered by the US
Agency for International Development was shot down over Western Sahara by the Polisario Front killing 5. Leaders of the
movement said the plane was mistaken for a Moroccan Lockheed
C-130. The aircraft was to be used to spray insecticide to control a
locust outbreak.[22]
1990s
1993 Transair Georgian Airline Shootdowns
In September 1993, three airliners belonging to Transair Georgia were shot down by missiles and
gunfire in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia.[23][24][25]
Lionair Flight LN 602
Lionair Flight LN 602, operated by an Antonov An-24RV, fell into the sea off the
north-western coast of Sri Lanka under mysterious circumstances on September
29, 1998. The aircraft departed Jaffna-Palaly Air Force Base on a flight to
Colombo and disappeared from radar screens just after the pilot had reported
depressurization. Initial reports indicated that the plane had been shot down
by Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels. All seven crew and forty-eight
passengers were killed.[26]
2000s
2001 Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
On 4 October 2001, Tu-154 crashed over the Black Sea. The plane may have been hit by S-200
surface to air missile, fired from the Crimea peninsula during an exercise of Ukrainian military. All
on board (66 passengers and 12 crew) were killed. Then President of Ukraine
Leonid Kuchma and several high commanders of the
military later expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims.[27]
2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident
On November 22, 2003, shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq,
an Airbus A300 cargo plane owned by European Air Transport
(a subsidiary of the German express-mail service DHL) was struck on the left wing tip by a surface-to-air missile.
Severe wing damage resulted in a fire and complete loss of hydraulic flight control systems.[28] The pilots used differential engine
thrust to fly the plane back to Baghdad, and were able to land without any
injuries or major aircraft damage.[29]
2007 Balad aircraft crash
On January 9, 2007, an Antonov An-26 crashed while attempting a landing at Balad Air Base in Iraq.[30] Although poor weather is blamed by
officials, witnesses claim they saw the plane being shot down,[31] and the Islamic Army in Iraq
claimed responsibility. Thirty-four of the thirty-five civilian passengers on
board were killed.[31]
2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash
On March 23, 2007, a TransAVIAexport
Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 airplane crashed in outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 2007
Battle of Mogadishu. Witnesses, including a Shabelle
reporter, claim they saw the plane shot down, and Belarus has initiated an anti-terrorist investigation,
but Somalia insists the crash was accidental.[32] All eleven Belarussian civilians on
board were killed.[33]
2010s
2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17,
flying to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, crashed near Donetsk in the eastern part
of Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew are reported killed when the plane
crashed from roughly 10 km (6.2 mi) altitude. The crash of Flight 17
coincided with alleged claims by Ukrainian separatists of having shot down a
military An-26.[34]
Near misses
2002 Mombasa attacks
On November 28, 2002, two shoulder-launched
Strela 2 (SA-7) surface-to-air
missiles were fired at a Boeing 757 airliner owned by Israel-based Arkia Airlines as it took off from Moi International Airport
in Mombasa. The missiles missed the plane, and it
landed safely in Tel Aviv.[35][36][37]
* Wikipedia articles
It has been said that there is
a bigger chance for a person to be hit by a moving car than to have an airplane
accident. We do consider this event as
an accident, an event which has taken lives or even hundreds, thousands of
lives in the world. For that statement,
I believed that aeronautics experts should come up with international
guidelines in dealing with this situation during or per-departure procedure is
being done. Before departure, airport
authority should make sure that the route taken by the plane
should not be within a critical areas of concern.
This Critical area could be classified as follows:
-
Countries with undergoing war
-
High risk Militarized Country such as North
Korea and the likes
- Countries with domestic rebellion or even
domestic terrorism, but not including areas that are considered under
controlled by the government.
-
Unstable Government (allowable but with high
precaution)
-
Countries with territorial disputes ( must be
properly coordinated
If done accordingly, these
rules would mean safer trips and proper coordination to all countries involved,
avoiding recurrence of event.
Going back, with the Malaysia
plane that was shot down, it should have been avoided if airline authorities
were able to instruct the pilot to avoid such critical area. Or in that matter, the pilot should have the
initiative to ask airport authorities if the path that they are taking is
considered safe of military hostility for that matter. More than that, I think , it should be taken
seriously and be discussed under United Nation Rules on Safety of Travel around
the world.
I hope such event would not
happen anymore and all of the rest of the world should learn from what had
happen.
